Christmas 2011

It has been an uneventful week here at the park. We have been preparing for Christmas and planning to go to to Val's house for Christmas over the weekend.

Brenda has been working on Val and Tony's Christmas presents last several weeks. She had been working  diligently on them until she had reached a stopping point where she had to buy more materials to complete Tony's lap blanket. She worked really hard on this all all day Thursday without completing it, and we had guests coming for the evening, so she had to stop and didn't get it didn't get done. We got up early on Friday morning as she worked for about four hours trying to get this completed. She finally finished it about noon and we left for Val's house.

After a short stop at Walmart for Christmas presents and dinner fixings, we arrived at Val's beautifully decorated home for the weekend. Val and Tony always outdo themselves during this time of the year in there decorations .
We visited all afternoon, ate dinner and prepared to go to Chris's house for his birthday celebration. Our baby brother turned 50 this year, boy, does that make us feel old. Of course, we razzed him about his age, but he took it all in stride.

Saturday was kind of a lazy day, laying around not doing too much. Although, we did do some cooking in preparation for Christmas Day. It was a team effort, as sausage balls were made for for our breakfast on Sunday. Val made an apple pie, and Michele's favorite, a pecan pie.

Christmas morning, both Brenda and I got up early only to be greeted by little Danielle, Michelle's youngest daughter. She is 11, and still believes in Santa. She was so excited. She must have looked at every package under the tree at least a dozen times. She she said she got up about 4 AM although she didn't go to bed till after midnight. Little rascal was still going strong, even when they left at about 6:00 PM.
About six o'clock am, she went and got Nana, Da, her mother and her sister up for the distribution of the presents. This year it was all about the children so very few presents were received by the adults. She and Dominique got a plethora of gifts.

Brenda was proud and anxious for Val and Tony to open the gifts that she had made for them. She did an excellent job, and Val and Tony were excited to receive these handmade gifts.

Brenda and  I went to 7:30 am mass Christmas morning, but the rest went to 4 PM mass on Christmas Eve.

About one o'clock, Chris and Linda came over with their grandchildren and a basket full of goodies. Again, the gifts were mainly for the children. Linda did, however, make some delicious treats and placed them in a Pyrex bowl for the adults.

For the Christmas meal this year, it was an Italian meal. We had lasagna, and olive salad, and the bottle of Pinot Noir that we had bought while on a wine tour in the Willamette Valley. There were pies and the fruitcake that Brenda had made for dessert. All in all a wonderful meal.

Brenda and I wish to offer a Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all who read and follow our blog.

Tata for now.

PS: This blog was dictated on Dragon, greatly received from Fred, Becky and our beautiful granddaughters.

Livingston Christmas Parade

At the Livingston State Park potluck and business meeting last month, it was suggested that we enter the Christmas Parade this year. Several people agreed to work on the float.

The Float

The park's logo

Stephan in Kayak

Stephan had experience in building a float. He offered to ramrod the project. He got together with a few volunteers and came up with the idea of Christmas in Lake Livingston State Park. All materials that were used were from the park. He had sticks piled up to look like a fire. It had a red glow to it. There were tree stumps to sit on, so that the children would ride safely . There were 7 children and 3 adults aboard, plus there was a kayak in the front which Stephan rode in. There was a tree on each side that had lights . They put blue lights under the kayak and had aluminum foil behind it so that it reminded you of water. Stephanie free handed a sign that is the parks motto, "Life's Better Outdoors". It was taped on the back of the float. They also had a wooden sign on both sides of the float that spelled out LAKE LIVINGSTON STATE PARK.

Our evening began at 4:30. I picked up Dianne (volunteer park host) and she directed me to the 1st baptist church parking lot in Livingston. Sheldon, Melissa, John (her husband ) and her girls, plus Stephan, were doing the last minute arranging on the float. Melissa, Dianne and I rode with Sheldon to the line up area and were handed a number for our entry.I am not sure how they judged the entries, but I am sure I will hear who got what awarded. We sat in line till almost 6:00 waiting for the parade to begin. There were quite a few entries.
We saw sponge bob, bugs bunny, elves, angels , boy scouts, girl scouts, volunteer fire departments, electric companies, adult daycare center, baptist church. I was able to snap quite a few pictures of the entries.

We started to move at 6:00. Melissa and Ronnie ( park interpreter) walked (or shall I say ran) on the left side and Dianne and I were on the right side of the float. We were not allowed to throw candy to anyone but we could hand it to them . Needless to say we got left in the dust many times. We ran out of candy before we even got to the courthouse. Since there was no candy left we started shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS and waving our arms. I don't know how anyone else felt but, shouting out Merry Christmas and the crowd shouting it back made me feel in the Christmas mood. As we turned off the main drag, we started singing jingle bells. We only sang one verse. Shortly after that I heard a group of percussionists playing. In honor of my daughter, Heather, I started to strut while walking. I strutted so fast I was ahead of my group and when they stopped playing I had to walk back a to my float. The guys in the adult day care center, the float ahead of us, enjoyed my strut.

By 6:30 we were at the end of the parade. I climbed into Sheldon's truck and he took everyone back to the drop off point. We were taken back to the baptist church so that we could get the car. Traffic was busy, so we stayed around and undecorated our entry a bit so that we could get it back in one piece. We were back home by 7:45. A good time was had by all.


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE,

AND PEACE TO HIS PEOPLE ON EARTH.